Great visual, Dan! Both are extremely effective. When evaluating a solution as a buyer, the important criteria to consider is how well your needs will be met and how well the product or service enhances your business, solves your problem and/or increases your revenue. Don’t let your fear or visions of grandeur be the ultimate determining factor.

Both may work, but it’s not clear that selling with opportunity is a better strategy. If you tell me that by not doing X, my company is going to fail, that’s a much better motivator to take action than telling me that by doing X I can be a market leader. The reason for this is that humans are fundamentally risk-averse. There have been a series of great studies on this, but the bottom line is that telling someone that they stand to lose money has a greater impact then telling them that they stand to win money.

Interesting, although I think I would feel like shit if I sold with fear. I also think buyer’s of “fear” will also feel like a bit out of sorts. Those are not feelings I’d want to build a relationship off of and sales is all about relationships. Although you might win the deal, you might put a blemish on the relationship.

Robert Jones

Maybe. It depends on how the client feels after the sale and whether they continue to believe the threat was real. You can sell someone life preservers by convincing them that they will drown without them, and I don’t know that you’d be putting a blemish on the relationship by doing so. The real danger comes if the client stops perceiving the threat, or if they come to believe that the threat was never there in the first place.

David

Concise, cogent and correct.

Marc Harrison

It isn’t that simple – you need to investigate the Sandler Sales System – just ask Ari – he’s now Sandler certified …

I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Troops, a venture-backed business that is building artificial intelligence for work. I am also the Co-Founder and President of TULA, a private equity backed health and beauty business that has developed the world's first line of probiotic skincare products.

Before that, I was a Co-Founder of Spinback (acquired by Buddy Media in May 2011, then acquired by Salesforce in June 2012).

On the side, I volunteer as a member of National Ski Patrol. In between I occasionally write words (see Forbes), crank tunes, and every now and again, hit up the globe for some traveling.

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